Response – Managing Legal Risks in Hospitals

Response – Managing Legal Risks in Hospitals

Thank you, Matthew, for taking the time to share your thoughts on my post this week. You have some interesting points on how to manage legal risks, and I believe that of all those measures highlighted, employee education on preventative measures is the most critical of them. My view on why the management should initiate an immediate investigation on suspicion of crime would be to curtail any further damage if at all anything is already amiss. On the issues of legal advice for the management, that would be an appropriate undertaking so that the healthcare provider operates within the purview of its legal obligations. Legal advice should, however, not be solicited from firms offering the same; instead, the hospital should have a team of its own. This way, they can be involved in all hospital activities that may necessitate the use of legal advice.

It may be noted that all activities that the hospital engages in, apart from conducting investigations into crimes at the workplace, may be challenged by the employees or regulators, for they should all be grounded on the law (Davidson, 2015). Having a legal team dedicated to the hospital will help in giving legal opinions before the management can undertake any operation that risks legal challenging. In the case of a crime investigation, abuse of the power given to the management or flouting of the rights of the employees being investigated may jeopardize the operation when suits are brought to the hospital. As such, being furnished with proper information relating to the legal aspects of a criminal investigation would save the management from possible suits or incidences of a breach of employees’ rights (Clarke, 2016).

References

Clarke, D. (2016). Strategizing national health in the 21st century: a handbook. Geneva: WHO.

Davisdson, S. (2015, October 5). 5 things hospital leadership should know before launching an internal investigation. Becker’s Hospital Review. Retrieved from https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/hospital-management-administration/5-things-hospital-leadership-should-before-launching-an-internal-investigation.html

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Fellow student , Mathew post:

Hello Mathew,

Thanks for your interesting post. Research has it that “hospitals can effectively manage their legal risks by implementing a systematic medical system, eliminating risk factors in administrative service, educating all hospital employees on preventative strategies, and improving customer service. Furthermore, efforts should be made to establish standard coping strategies to manage medical disputes and malpractice lawsuits, operate alternative dispute resolution methods including the Medical Dispute Mediation Committee, create a compliance support center, deploy a specialized workforce including improved legal services for employees, and specialize the management-level tasks of the hospital” (Park, e t al., 2016). However, from your third paragraph, you stated “If I am suspicious of a crime, the first thing that I do is to investigate if there be any truth to my suspicions. Things may look deceptive or sinister especially where information is scarce”. This appears simple and easy to do. As you may already know, health workers are mandatory reporters. There are occasions when they are not in position to carry out investigation, but to relate the issues to the supervisor with the evidence at their disposal. The question is, what if you are the head, the administrator, or the manager? At this time other employees are counting on you to take the appropriate decision. I think legal advice is also very important in healthcare legal cases, especially those that have to do with crime in work place. What is your take on the use of legal advice?

Reference:

Park, H. J., Cho, D. Y., Park, Y. S., Kim, S. W., Park, J. H., & Park, N. C. (2016). Controlling Legal Risk for Effective Hospital Management. The world journal of men’s health, 34(1), 56–63. doi:10.5534/wjmh.2016.34.1.56